Welcome to the New Jersey Inclusive Child Care Project

Inclusive education is an attitude of acceptance of difference, not a classroom placement. It is a value of diversity that extends to ALL children.

The New Jersey Inclusive Child Care Project (NJICCP) is funded by a Grant from New Jersey Department of Human Services, Division of Family Development. With this Grant, NJICCP is able to promote childcare providers to offer inclusive child care services and educate families and professionals of services available for children with disabilities and special needs in New Jersey. New Jersey’s Quality Ratings and Improvement Scale, Grow NJ Kids initiative and Partnerships, provide a wealth of resources to early childhood professionals to promote and support inclusion. The project goals for the NJ Inclusive Child Care Project are to:

• Encourage and support childcare providers (family child care and center-based programs) to more effectively identify developmental delays and other special needs and offer inclusive child care; • Educate parents, families, providers, and other key stakeholders of the services available for children with special needs including in identification, evaluation, development of service plans, and provisions of inclusive services; and • Promote collaboration among the childcare provider community and special needs service providers and systems to improve the delivery of services to children with special needs

For 2018-2019 We will achieve our goals by providing following services:

A. Provide telephone assistance to parents and child care providers on screening, inclusion laws and strategies, appropriate community resources for parents and providers regarding children with special needs, and partnering with families and professionals across agencies; B. Provide professional development trainings on a variety of topics;C. Conduct a series of teleconferences for families and providers (English and Spanish); D. Collaborate with our State Conference Committee Partners, NJSACC, Health in Child Care/Map to Inclusive Child Care, NJAEYC, and Grown NJ Kids Partners; E. We offer on-site Technical Assistance to a limited number of early childhood programs, including family child care, focused on supporting their inclusion of young children with the full range of special needs including developmental, intellectual/cognitive, physical, and other disabilities

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 if the Vocational Rehabilitation Act prohibit discrimination by child care and after-school care providers against children with special needs. Many child care providers, after-school care providers and families are unaware of the provisions of these laws or how to effectively include children with special needs.